Soullessly Soulmated
by Pearsforgranite1
Summary: Most people only had one soulmark, it was rare to have two. Darcy wished she had none. Darcy knew her two soulmates would hate her (her soulmarks were proof of that), but she hadn't fathomed that they wouldn't believe her when she said their words.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Hi! I've decided to try my hand at writing slightly angsty romance through the highly unoriginal premise of soulmates.

There won't be any smut in this fic. Believe me, nobody wants me to try writing that. I can only imagine the clichéd overuse of 'engorged' and 'throbbing'.

 **Background:** Everyone has a soulmate which they are able to identify by a black soulmark. Soulmarks are the first words soulmates say to each other. The colour doesn't change.

* * *

"Does Pepper Potts have an evil twin?" Darcy side-mouthed to Jane as she watched a woman approach them oozing power, poise, and confidence. A beautiful brunette who reminded her strongly of a freckle-less version of the Stark Industries CEO.

She was answered by the very familiar 'Hmmm?' noise of a distracted-by-science Jane Foster. Looking over, Darcy saw the petite scientist was completely engrossed in the notes she had managed to smuggle into her bag without Darcy noticing. Jane wasn't supposed to bring anything that might distract her from their trip to and around the tower because she needed to know how navigate without Darcy guiding her everyday all day. Jane Foster might be an astrophysics wizard, but when it came to directions she was a squib.

"Jane!" Darcy felt a little sorry, but mostly vindicated, when her sharp tone startled Jane into some embarrassing flailing, right there in the lobby of Avengers Tower. "I get that science is the shiny to your squirrel, but if you don't pay attention, I'm going to make you figure out how to get home by yourself."

Jane looked distinctly worried at that prospect and gazed at her notes forlornly before attempting to cram them back into her bag.

"I wouldn't worry, Dr. Foster, considering the trip to the labs from the residential floors is a simple elevator ride. If that happens to prove too complicated, then Jarvis is always available to assist. Welcome! I'm Maria Hill, SI Relations." She shook Jane's hand with a firmness that commanded attention.

Feeling the inexplicable need to impress Maria Hill, SI Relations, Darcy geared up to deliver her own impressively firm handshake and had her hand halfway extended, but, without even acknowledging Darcy, Hill turned and led them towards the elevators. Jane was too busy still trying to jam her notes into her overflowing bag to notice the surprising snub. Darcy slowly lowered her hand and trailed behind.

"I must say, Dr. Foster, it is an absolute pleasure to meet you. Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner are very eager to have you on board." She gave Jane a warm smile as they piled into the elevator. She pulled out a badge, waved it at a scanner, and hit a button for the labs. "Your badge/ID card is in your room. I'm going to take you to the lab now. I'll show you the residential quarters we have arranged for you when you have finished touring the labs."

"Residential? You mean live here?" Darcy was flabbergasted. She and Jane were currently subletting an apartment for a month while searching/stressing for a permanent place. To think that they would be living here instead…her mind boggled.

Maria didn't even deign to look at Darcy before addressing her response to Jane, as though Jane had posed the question.

"Yes. As soon as Mr. Stark began making individual suites for the Avengers, he also made one for you. You will be happy to note that Thor's suite is next door to yours."

Darcy didn't know what the hell Maria Hill had against her, but she decided it wasn't worth her energy to figure out on their first day at the tower. After today Darcy hopefully wouldn't have to interact with her at all.

Walking into the lab they were greeted by the sight of Tony Stark and Bruce Banner speculating over one of Jane's creations.

"I have no idea what it is, the shipping container was just labeled ' **Spectrometer?!** '." An intrigued looking Bruce stated, adjusting his glasses further up his nose as he gazed upon the wonder that was Jane's whack engineering.

Darcy had been burdened with the task of labeling the boxes holding all of Jane's homegrown doohicky's and although she had worked with Jane for years, she still had no idea what the hell most of her mechanical babies did. In the end, Darcy had decided, 'fuck it' and now all of the boxes were labelled ' **Spectrometer?!** '.

Tony bent over for a closer inspection.

"Jesus Christ, is this… _duct tape_?!" Disgusted, Tony ripped off the already peeling strip that had been barely holding a panel closed.

"Hey! Stop breaking my machine!" A furious Jane stomped over to Tony and wretched the tape out of his hand.

Before she had a chance to re-adhere it to her creation, there was an ominous creaking sound and they all watched as the panel bulged out and popped off, clattering to the floor noisily. A shower of screws spewed out after it and, after a moment, a few stripped wires began slowly emerging from the hole in an almost bewildered fashion, like mole people exposed to the outside for the first time.

Looking at the spillage of innards, Tony responded, "Frankenstein, your monster was already broken."

A frenetic Jane rushed to save her baby, "No, no! It's fine! Everybody calm down! I can fix this!"

She scooped up the screws, chucked them back inside the huge, jagged hole that the panel had been hiding, and then slammed the piece back on and tried to secure it with the tired piece of tape, muttering, 'I can fix this!' the entire time. But having tasted freedom, the tape refused to be reattached to the metallic deadweight. Sighing in defeat, Jane balled up the tape and threw it into the gaping hole, as though it was a garbage can.

"If this doesn't work anymore, you owe me another one!" She pointed her index at Tony in accusatorily.

Tony looked at her with raised eyebrows, " _IF_ it doesn't work? Foster, if your lobotomy victim did anything other than make agonized whirring noises, I'll make you a new one myself. Duct tape and all."

Darcy winced. That was a harsh, yet fair assessment applicable to at least half of Jane's mechanical marvels.

Bruce decided to mediate before Jane became any redder with indignant rage, "Ignore Tony. He's of the opinion that duct tape is for ducts only."

"It turns on _and_ it works. Well, it did," Jane defended. "It's used to measure the frequency responses between-"

"-Yes, yes, I'm sure its death rattles were very impressive, but why don't you come take a little look at what I've got over here." Wrapping an arm around Jane's shoulders, Tony sounded like a sleazy car salesman as he gently led her towards the other end of the room, closer to the new equipment he had provided to outfit her lab.

Darcy watched with a little grin as Jane became enthralled by Tony's shiny, shiny thingamabobs. Her grin grew to an outright smile as Bruce Banner approached her with a hesitant smile on his face.

"Hello. I wasn't aware another scientist would be accompanying Dr. Foster."

"Oh, no. I'm no scientist. I'm Jane's assistant and Chief Wrangler, Darcy Lewis."

She thrust out her hand, which Bruce shook gently, looking surprised, yet pleased at her friendliness. Her heart gave a little twinge at his reaction. She assumed that not too many people liked to exchange social niceties with the dude who turned into the hulk, ignoring the fact that he was one of the ones saving them from the weirdos trying to take over the world every other day.

His smile grew a tinge confused as he asked, "Assistant and Chief Wrangler?"

"Sounds more glamourous than it is. I'm a basic lab-monkey: transcribing; organizing; making sure she's watered, fed, and in bed at a decent time."

"She's opted not to use Jarvis, then?"

"Jarvis?"

Tony and Jane had now returned and having heard Darcy, Tony elaborated, "You'll love Jarvis." Bragging about his A.I. he continued, "He's already transcribed all your chicken scratch and organized the chaos that is your scientific existence."

"How the hell did he manage that? It took me forever to translate Jane's unabomber notes. Half the time _she_ doesn't even know what she's written." As soon as the words left her mouth, Darcy wanted to yank them back in. If they were looking at replacing her with a far superior A.I., she should probably be detailing her assets instead of her faults.

Tony squinted at her, "Who are you again?"

Maria Hill, SI Relations, chose that moment to speak up, "This is Dr. Foster's friend from New Mexico, Miss. Lewis."

Her explanation served to further confuse Tony, who asked Maria, "And she's doing what here? Sight-seeing? There are guest passes in the lobby if she wants a tour of the building. This area is restricted to civvies."

 _'_ _Civy?!'_ Darcy's mouth fell open at the label.

Jane puffed up and jumped to Darcy's defense, "Darcy isn't a civilian! She's my assistant. When you hired me, you hired her."

"Uhhhhhh….." Tony trailed off, looking at Bruce, who had opted to clean his glasses in the face of awkwardness, and then looking to Maria to contradict Jane, which she was happy to do.

"No, actually, we didn't. As per your contract, when we hired you, Dr. Foster, we only hired you."

Darcy felt like someone had ripped the rug out from under her as Maria turned to her and stated with no small amount of vindictiveness, " We apologize if you were under the impression you were to be working for Stark Industries, but we don't hire 'lab-monkeys', as you so aptly described your position. Mr. Stark's billion dollar Artificial Intelligence system will effectively and efficiently assist Dr. Foster in any way she requires. This includes transcribing, organizing, sound boarding, as well as turning off the lights if she has gone too long without sufficient sustenance or rest."

"You can blame Tony for that last one," Bruce added, seeing Jane's indignant look at the idea of a machine telling her when to go to bed. "After one too many sentient toasters spawned from 50 hour binges, Pepper used her codes to override Tony, update Jarvis, and instigate a bedtime after 24 straight hours."

"Fine. You don't have to hire her. I'll hire her myself and pay her to be my assistant. She won't cost you a thing."

Darcy winced. She was beginning to feel like a burden that Jane had to justify.

"No offense, but why? What would take her an hour to do, Jarvis is able to complete in under a minute. I get that you're friends, but nobody wants a pity job." Tony looked at Darcy's face, red with embarrassment, and relented, "Tell you what, since you've been working for Dr. Foster, I'm sure you're a hard worker. SI always has a place for hard workers. Maria will make sure you have a job here."

"I'm sure we can find something for her to do, if it would make you and Dr. Foster happy, Mr. Stark." Maria flatly replied. Her words and tone making it quite clear to Darcy that she was still being given a pity job.

Although Darcy hated to admit it, Tony's logic made sense – Jane didn't need Darcy and Darcy didn't want to slow Jane down. By the look on Jane's face, she knew it too.

"Look on the brightside, Janey, at least we're going to be living in the same building. We'll still see each other all time."

Yet another misconception Hill was more than happy to correct, "Unfortunately, only one room has been made available for Dr. Foster: a one bed, one bath, suite."

Jane, her sweet, sweet Janey, puffed up in a fluffy ball of anger on Darcy's behalf, "How hard can it possibly be to make another room available? This place is huge!"

Hill looked at Jane apologetically, "In order to free up another room, we would have to remove someone from the tower, which is not an option, I'm afraid."

"Fine. Darcy and I can share. We've bunked together in an RV months on end. We can certainly make this work."

Tony was beginning to get annoyed, "Ok, this is getting just a little pathetic." Looking at Darcy he continued a bit harshly, "My tower is not a dorm or a homeless shelter. Only the Avengers and their soulmates are permitted to live here. Unless I'm mistaken, you're neither of those things. I'm already giving you a job, I'm not going to provide free room and board for you as well."

From the moment Jane had said they were moving to New York to work for Stark Industries, Darcy had been dreaming of meeting the Avengers. She had imagined charming the socks off of them all by regaling them with how she had tasered Thor and they'd all become fast friends, with movie nights and family dinners. The reality was turning out to be a nightmare. There were only a few instances in Darcy's life when she felt as small as she did in this very moment under the weighty stare of one of one of the most influential people on the planet. She was clearly being judged and coming up short. Like, so short she barely reached the scum on the bottom of his shoe.

Biting her cheek hard enough to distract her from his harsh words, Darcy took a deep breath and with the little dignity she had left, said, "I understand completely, Mr. Stark. I apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate the opportunity and whatever position Ms. Hill feels I would be best suited."

Slightly surprised the petite, curvy girl hadn't bitten his head off (she looked a lot feistier than she was. How boring.) Tony said, "Great. What a peach. So you go on with Maria, and Bruce and I will take Jane here and show her the ropes." He turned back to the lab, almost instantly forgetting about her.

Jane opened her mouth to no doubt argue, but Darcy spoke before Jane could say something to further make the situation worse, "It's alright, Janey, I'll see you when you're finished." With that she threw her a bright smile and turned to follow a superior looking Hill out of the room.

Before leaving through the door, Darcy turned to shoot one last smile and wave at a distraught Jane. Turning around, however, revealed that Jane didn't need the reassurance as she wasn't watching Darcy's departure at all and was, in fact, already completely enthralled with whatever Bruce and Tony were saying. Darcy's hand had been mid-wave before she had realized, and her embarrassment grew when she saw Maria Hill staring at her as if she was an idiot.

Quickly lowering her hand, she silently followed the other woman as she led her away from Jane.

Frumpy and clod-hopper. Those were the two adjectives vying most aggressively for first place when Darcy compared herself to the woman who could be 'Pepper Potts: Bitchy Brunette Edition'. Was there like a hotness test that you had to pass before becoming an Avenger or SI employee? Because this woman, like almost every person Darcy had seen since arriving at the tower, looked like she walked straight out of a magazine, airbrush included. At a plumpy 5'2", the only thing Darcy had in common with Maria was the colour of her hair.

* * *

"The mailroom?!" An insulted Darcy scanned the paperwork Hill had given her to sign.

Sitting across from her, Maria smiled, "Yes, Ms. Lewis. The mailroom. It is the only opening we have available that would be best suited to your capabilities."

She gestured to Darcy's CV, which she had managed to procure using SI's resources, and continued, "Aside from a few stints in the service industry, you have only held one position, which was your internship for Dr. Foster."

Darcy eyed Maria shrewdly, "You don't like me very much, do you?"

The head of SI Relations took her time shuffling papers before answering Darcy, "Whether or not I like you is irrelevant. My opinion of your merits has no value in this matter. Mr. Stark has requested I provide you with a job so that is what I am endeavouring to do. A job, it is worth noting, that thousands of people would be thrilled to have. We receive hundreds of resumes a week for positions such as this and here it is being handed to you as a favour to someone else."

Darcy wanted so badly to tell Hill to take this job and shove it, but, unfortunately, Darcy needed the income. If she wasn't going to be Jane's assistant, then she needed to find another way to survive living in New York. Looking at the salary of her new position as a 'Transportation Coordinator of Physical Communication' she realized she would need a second job just to pay rent for a place anywhere near the tower. Thankfully, this month had already paid at her and Jane's current apartment. Her heart sunk when she realized she would need to find another roommate.

Darcy's pride was having a hard time swallowing a mailroom position. Talk about demotion. She was aware her employment record was thin, but it was in no way an accurate reflection of her experience. And Hill _knew_ this; she _knew_ Darcy had been 'Best Supporting Female in Thor Saves the World' twice and could be a real asset to SI. In what respect, the hell if Darcy knew, but she did know her knowledge and skills were wasted in the mailroom. It majorly sucked that beggars couldn't be choosers.

Swallowing down a defeated sigh, Darcy asked, "So, when do I start?"

Typing into her computer, Hill didn't even look at Darcy as she answered, "You start at 6:00am tomorrow morning. Your shift is 12 hours, 4 days on, 3 days off. Your ID badge will be waiting for you at the front desk tomorrow, as will your supervisor. Have a nice day."

Hill couldn't have planned the moment better, as right at that second her phone rang, leaving no room for further questions or conversations. Hill answered and began speaking in a rather sweet voice to the caller. She sounded like a completely different Hill. Darcy assumed by the smile in her voice and the lack of daggers in her eyes that she was talking to her soulmate. Ugh.

Darcy gathered her things and walked out the door. She debated slamming it loudly, but refused to give Hill ammunition against her.

A Stark Industries car had picked her and Jane up this morning and drove them to Avengers tower. They had assumed a car would be driving them back as well. That was clearly not going to be the case for Darcy. So, fully regretting wearing her fancy heels, Darcy started the trek back to her apartment.

Obviously, it started raining halfway home. When Darcy finally arrived at her apartment she was soaking wet and, with each step, her feet were slipping out of her waterlogged pumps. Dropping her bags at the door, she immediately changed into her comfiest pajamas (footed onesies covered in adorable little cartoon Mjolnirs). Nevermind that it was barely 2p.m. in the afternoon. She was done with today. It had won. She'd have another go at it tomorrow.

She texted Jane letting her know she was home on the off chance that today will be the day that Jane actually read her texts without physical prompting from Darcy. Darcy wasn't holding her breath. Instead, she grabbed the Ben and Jerry's, retrieved her laptop, bed comforter, and proceeded to search for a second job (possibly a third – kill her now) while burrito'd on the couch giving herself brain freeze.

An hour into it and she had fired off her resume to a few coffee shops, an animal shelter, a bodega, and a few upscale retailers. Hill was right, Darcy's resume wasn't exactly bursting with hireability and these were places close enough to the tower that the commute wouldn't kill her. Once she was settled, she'd have to look into some actual career moves, whether that meant going back to school or not, she was unsure. The only thing she was sure was that she wanted to stay in New York. Not only because of Janey, but because this would probably be her only chance of living in the infamous city, so she wanted to stick it out as long as she could. The day had already kicked her ass, she wasn't about to let the city win too.

Finished with job hunting for the moment, she decided today was dreary enough to binge herself into a netfilx coma. Looking out the window, she was almost blinded by the brightness of the sun. Goddamn fucker waited until she was home to pop its blazing head out of its cloudy ass. It was beautiful outside and she was holed up like some cave dweller. She could start packing up Jane's belongings, but a little part of her was holding out that she might decide to stay with Darcy. Netflix coma it was.

30 minutes later, Darcy was so absorbed in the vampire mockumentary she was watching, that she failed to notice she had company, until said company was sitting next to her eating her ice cream which had been melting on the coffee table.

"What the hell are you watching?"

Darcy let out a shriek and flailed around in her blanket burrito trying to escape its confines.

"Hey! Hey! _Chill_ , _Winston_! It's okay, I'm Hawkeye. I'm just here to look through Dr. Foster's stuff."

Finally freed from her blanket, she stood up and looked down at the intruder as he looked up at her from his seat on the couch.

" _Whoa_." They both took in each other's respective ensembles. While Clint was met with about a hundred fluffy cartoon mjolnirs, Darcy was met with a truly obscene amount of purple.

"Dude. My eyes!" Darcy put up a hand as though to shield herself from the hideousness.

Clint scoffed. "Your eyes have never been so blessed."

"Cursed is the word you're looking for, Birdy. Not blessed."

Darcy immediately recognized the Avenger making himself at home in her apartment as Hawkeye aka Clint Barton. It was probably stupid of her to let her guard down so easily, but he was such a familiar face from the news and she'd heard all about him from Thor that she felt immediately at ease.

Though she did squint her eyes at him suspiciously when his words finally made it to her brain, "Looking through Jane's stuff? For what?"

Speaking around a mouthful of ice cream, Clint garbled out, "Just to confirm her belongings don't contain any sensitive information that could fall into the wrong hands when transported to the tower this afternoon."

"We already made sure everything was shipped to the tower. All that's left here is her personal crap."

"And these detailed notes on Asgardian medical tech, something called a Soul Forge." He held up several pieces of looseleaf covered in penciled scribblings. "They were hidden under her pillow."

Darcy flopped back on the couch and rolled her eyes. "Goddamnit, Jane…Wait," Sitting straight up she realized, "you've been through the entire apartment already?"

"Yep. Aside from these notes and the fact that Foster likes a lot of flannel, I've found nothing."

"How the hell did I not notice some rando sneaking through my apartment?!"

With a commiserating pat on her head, Clint stated, "I wasn't even that quiet. I knocked over a book in the hallway. You were pretty glued to the tube over here. Your level of focus was very impressive, if not completely detrimental to your survival had I been an evildoer."

Glaring at him as he proceeded take another spoonful of ice cream, Darcy ordered, "Get your own damn spoon!" and grabbed the utensil out of his hand, ignoring his protest.

Grumbling Clint got up and, with unsettling accuracy, retrieved said instrument.

"Did you rifle through the cupboards too? How the hell do you know the location of the spoons?"

Looking a little guilty, Clint admitted, "I may or may not have been spying on you through the vents. It's how I got into your unit."

"How much did you see exactly?"

Knowing what she was asking, Clint slowly backed away, "Uhh…I may or may not have been privy to the glorious sight of your purple underwear when you changed into those truly awful pyjamas."

Letting out an indecipherable noise of rage, Darcy chucked her spoon at his head, which he easily deflected, "You goddamn pervert! I should call the cops!"

Yelping as she started throwing anything she could get her hands on at him, Clint hastily made excuses, "I'm sorry! I didn't mean too! It doesn't matter anyway, I'm already soulmated so you don't have to worry about me hitting on you or anything!"

More worn out than appeased, Darcy stopped chucking her belongings at him, "You suck."

Letting out a relieved breath, Clint agreed, "I know. How about we sit back down and watch the rest of whatever the hell it is you're watching. I'll even stop eating your ice cream."

"Don't you have somewhere to be? Like a job when you're not fighting aliens?"

Clint raised an eyebrow, "We can't all be 'footie-pajamas-by-2pm' level of busy like you, but I have a while before I have to be back."

Grumbling, "Yeah, alright, touché or whatever." Darcy let him lead her back to the couch and they restarted the movie.

Mid way through the film, Darcy noticed goosebumps littering Clint's bare arms (she may or may not have been noticing his arms before noticing the goosebumps) and scooched closer and extended her blanket to cover him as well.

Grinning at her, Clint immediately got as cozy as possible, "Aww, thanks, Lewis."

"Shut up."

By the end of the movie, they were leaning against each other and completely comfortable, as if they had known each other 2 years instead of 2 hours.

"That was one of the strangest things I've ever seen."

"Strangely awesome."

Stretching, Darcy shoved Clint's legs off her lap and went to use the washroom. When she returned he had folded the blanket and was cleaning up her belongings which were all over the floor from being launched at his head earlier.

"I would help you clean that up, but you deserved it." She stood supervising with her arms crossed over her chest.

"I promise next time I'll use the door."

Raising an eyebrow, "Next time?"

Grinning at her, Clint elaborated, "Oh yeah, we're homies now. I've already programed my number into your phone." He gestured to her phone, which was sitting on the counter beside him.

"Great," she deadpanned. "Well, I'll be moving by the end of the month, so you'll soon have to get acquainted with a new layout and a potential freaky roommate."

"What? Why? You just got here and this is apartment is nice."

"Yeah, too nice." She explained the situation and Clint frowned.

"Jesus Christ, Tony. That was surprisingly stingy of him. I live in the tower and that place is huge, with guest rooms and units to spare."

Darcy felt a sharp twinge in her chest at hearing that.

Not wanting Clint to know how much the information stung, she shrugged her shoulders. "I understand. He doesn't know me from a hole in the wall, and the tower is for Avengers and their soulmates, so it's fine, really. Just means I have to find a place within 30 days."

"Well, when you get signed in tomorrow, check SI's intranet. The company has the equivalent to facebook for the employees and there's usually all sorts of postings for roommates and stuff."

Darcy perked up at the prospect of getting a roommate that also worked at Stark Industries.

"And if all else fails, we can try and smuggle you into an empty suite through the vents."

* * *

An hour later, movers came for Jane's belongings, which took all of 20 minutes.

* * *

"You're a good bro, Jane, but you're not my mother. You can't pay for half the rent of a place you're not actually living in. It's fine. I'll be completely fine. It'll be good for us to live apart, not to mention you'll actually be close enough to your soulmate to have a relationship filled with domestic bliss and all that garbage. And this way I won't have to listen to Thor's nocturnal hammering ever again."

Jane groaned as Darcy cackled. She'd been referring to Jane and Thor's sexy times using construction euphemisms.

"Jane?" Darcy heard Thor through the receiver. Jane had called from the tower letting her know that she wouldn't be back that night as she and Thor were going out to dinner after Tony's little gathering. Darcy could hear what sounded like an avenger party on the other end. Lots of laughter and music. She could definitely hear her new bestie Barton cheering about something.

The shard of loneliness that stabbed through her was strong enough to make her teeth ache. Wanting nothing more than to curl back up in her blankets, Darcy quickly sought to end the call, "You'd better go, Janey. I don't want to keep your thunder god waiting. I'll talk to you later, alright?"

"Alright, bye Darce. Have a good night."

After Jane hung up, Darcy curled into a ball on the couch in silence, not bothering to turn on the tv or her laptop. She wouldn't be able to watch or read anything anyway through her stinging eyes and blurred vision. Finally allowing the day to catch up with her, a few tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks. Despite 'bagging' a job at the highly desirable Stark Industries, today was a low point for Darcy. Faced with realization that without Jane, she didn't really have anything for herself, Darcy felt overwhelmed with failure. In a moment of self-hatred, she got up to look at her soulmarks. Unzipping her pyjamas, she turned her back towards the mirror in the bathroom and let the hateful words wash over her.

Darcy always ensured her back was covered. Only her family knew her words. Not even Jane knew them. She had no idea Darcy even had two. When Jane had asked, Darcy had made it very clear the topic was off limits, which Jane had respected completely.

She had two soulmarks, each ran vertically down either side of her back from her shoulders to the dimples in her lower back. The soulmark trailing from her left shoulder was in English and full of disapproval and rejection. She had hoped the Russian trailing down her right side would make up for her left side, but, once translated, those words were even worse. Fate or destiny or whatever the hell decided this shit, shouldn't have even bothered giving her soulmarks because it was clear that the two people whose words were on skin would never want anything to do with her. They would never be together.

Most people only had one soulmark. It was rare to have two. Darcy wished she had none.

* * *

 **A/N:** Hopefully that was alright. I know it was a pretty slow beginning, but I've got a big chunk of this written already. I'd love and appreciate any feedback. Thank you!

(If anyone care, the movie Clint and Darcy were watching was 'What We Do In The Shadows'. So awesome and hilarious.)


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** The worst? Oh, right. That'd be me.

I know how annoying it is when authors never update. I hate waiting for stories to update, so, I apologize for the wait. I know other authors go on about how busy their lives are, but, well, I'm just a very lazy person who couldn't be bothered to write.

Thank you so much for such a positive response to Chapter 1. Seriously. Holy moly.

I was surprised people were so anti Jane. I didn't mean to portray her as a shitty friend. Just a flighty one. She loves Darcy, but the Science, it sings her siren song and she just can't help getting pulled away.

* * *

*BEEP!BEEP!BEEP! BE- _THWACK_ *

After Hulk-smashing her alarm clock into submission, Darcy let out a sound reminiscent of one of Jane's janky creations in protest of having to function.

"Nnnggggaaaarrrrrbbblllrr."

Darcy Lewis was not the most enchanting of creatures at the horrific hour of 4:30am.

Despite having spent most of yesterday in her pajamas, sleep had proven pretty elusive. Instead of counting sheep, her brain had decided to count all the ways in which her life currently sucked. The last time Darcy had dared to look at her clock, 2:30 a.m. had glared back at her.

Ugh, she did not want to get up. She could feel a headache beginning to bloom behind her eyes from stress and lack of sleep. As Darcy laid in bed contemplating how awful the next 14 hours were going to be, exhaustion crept in unnoticed and gently pulled her eyelids closed. When she next opened her eyes, she felt a little more rested and peered over at her dented alarm clock only to let out a "Holy Fucking SHIT!" at the time – 5:00 am! She had to be at Stark Industries for 6:00am (realistically, 5:50am if she wanted to make a good first impression). Meaning she only had 30 minutes to shower, do her hair and make-up, dress to impress, and eat. The trek would take her 20 minutes at a steady hustle on foot. She and Jane hadn't had time to learn the subway system, and at this point in her personal economic crisis, her finances were basically in the red so a cab was not an option.

Multitasking her way through her morning routine proved a bit above her skill level. Attempting to iron her shirt while brushing her teeth resulted in the back of her blouse sporting a gnarly iron burn. And if someone were pervy enough to examine her blouse's armpit, they would encounter a rather sizeable splotch of toothpaste, which, in drying, appeared to the ignorant eye as a discoloured sweat stain incongruently smelling of Arctic Mint.

Finally ready to leave, panic spiked through her when she saw the time - 5:40a.m. Considering every minute was precious at this point, she was so frigging late.

The morning walk to Stark Industries was jarring. It was the beginning of October so the city wasn't as brightly lit as she would've liked; the sun still working on rising over the horizon. She walked past a few rather unsavoury characters who threw out such classics as: 'Hey sexy', 'Morning Mama', 'I've got just the thing for those DSLs', and one super gross dude pissing in an alley yelled out a garbled 'Thiccc!' at her, belched, and then threw up all over himself.

It wasn't even like she could be victim-blamed for wearing provocative clothing. Unless wearing a grey, slightly wrinkled pantsuit, purple velvet sneakers, and damp hair tied up in a tight bun was the new sexy. Also, she hadn't had time to mess with her contacts so her sight was granted through the lenses of a pair of butt-ugly glasses her Mom had picked out for her in highschool.

Darcy arrived at Avengers Tower feeling honestly kinda violated and uncomfortable. Her posture hunched as she found herself turtling down into her blazer out of self-consciousness. The 20 minute walk/jog had felt much longer. Standing outside on the curb, she wondered what Jane was doing at that very moment inside the tower. Probably nice and cozy in bed with her thunder god or, in true Jane fashion, was wide awake and having the scientific time of her nerd life in her shiny new lab.

The building was so tall that Darcy had no hopes of seeing Jane's floor from the street. Her view point was so low that the perspective made the residential portion of the building nothing more than a spec of light.

Before entering, she swapped out her sneakers for the work appropriate shoes stashed in her bag, thankfully she was completely ignored by the multitude of SI employees rushing past her. Walking through the doors, she immediately saw what could only be her supervisor – an attractive, yet highly annoyed looking man waiting at the reception desk. Checking the huge platinum clock on the wall revealed she was almost 5 minutes late _._

Rushing over, she extended her hand, "Good morning, sir. I'm Darcy Lewis. I apologize for being late. I assure you, it is not the norm."

Shaking her hand, he introduced himself, "Paul Manning. I'm just going to say it now, Ms. Lewis - Stark Industries has a strict attendance policy, the details of which should have been provided in your packet from HR. You get three tardies. You're now down to two."

He released her hand with a slight grimace which Darcy found extremely insulting and rude. It's not like her hand was disgusting or sweaty or…nevermind. A quick glance at her appendage proved it was in fact glistening and clammier than a mollusk. God, why was she so gross. She discreetly wiped it on the interior of her pants pocket.

"You have to be through those doors by 6:00am on the dot. The surveillance system within the tower will monitor your badge activity, automatically clocking you in and out and sending me notification if there is a tardy. This morning you will have your photo taken for your ID badge. Please follow me."

Stepping into the elevator, Darcy watched as he pressed B5 for basement (she could see the end of his soulmark peeking out the cuff of his sleeve – just the letters 'ing' in loopy cursive) and listened as he gave her a bit of a rundown. The mailroom spanned two levels – B5 and B6. She had clearance up to level 30. After 6 months, her level of access will be in direct correlation to her level of performance. After 2 years she could potentially be approved up to level 75. Levels 75-80 were accessible by only a select few mailroom associates (minimum of 5 years) as they housed the labs of Dr. Banner and Mr. Stark. Level 81+ were the residential floors and she would never have clearance for those levels.

Darcy was finally realizing how everyone else felt in relation to the Avengers. She had been so up close and personal with Thor and his chaos that she hadn't realized just how untouchable he was to normal people. The descending elevator seemed to represent her life's trajectory - further down and further away from her friends and goals. She shook her head. Wow, she was melodramatic for 6:15 in the morning.

Once her photo was taken, she looked at her ID badge in dismay. Replace the words "Stark Industries" with "New York City Police Department" and it could've passed as a mugshot. Smiling had been prohibited and the resulting resting bitch face made her look criminally insane.

Supervisor Paul swiftly covered up his laugh with a cough. "It's alright. Almost everyone has terrible ID photos. You can get a new one in a year."

The thought of still working in the mailroom after a year was a tragic prognosis. Before Darcy could further lament, she was promptly escorted out of the room, down a maze of hallways, and into her new work environment.

When Darcy envisioned her stint in the mailroom, she just automatically assumed the place would be dark, dreary, windowless, and smokey (either from a firey furnace or from old men smoking while wearing bowler hats and suspenders. She admittedly watched too much era-specific tv). However, instead of a dank hell, the mailroom at Stark Industries was huge and insanely bright due to the numerous floor to ceiling "windows" which turned out to be highly convincing computer screens displaying a view as if they were 40 floors up. She watched impressed as New York was projected in real-time.

"Each screen had a different view corresponding to the view of a window 40 floors up. All the windows on the 35th floor have a camera attached so the employees in the windowless basement levels don't go insane. Soon you'll forget that they aren't actual windows. The amount of times people have attempted to open them is embarrassing. As you would expect, this building is state of the art. On your own time, I encourage you to reference the map on the employee intranet and explore all the various amenities found on the different floors."

Following Paul around the office, it appeared everyone had their own cubicle. Paul explained the ins and outs. It wasn't rocket science by any stretch, but it was a sophisticated system.

"There's approximately 3000 employees filling the floors above and below us. We are responsible for coordinating the incoming and outgoing mail for each one of them. The mail department has 40 coordinators, and while that may seem like a lot, believe me, it's not."

He showed her around the department – where the mail came in, where outgoing mail went out, her circulation schedule, how to handle expedited correspondence, packages, etc. Finally he arrived at a lone cubicle stashed away in a corner. Unlike the majority of the cubicles in the room, it had high walls and wasn't connected to another cubicle. Darcy looked at it in slight dismay and opened her mouth to issue a complaint about being so isolated from everyone else, but quickly closed it. This wasn't permanent. She'd be fine. She'd keep her nose to the grind stone and she'd be fine.

"Today and tomorrow will be dedicated to online training, for the rest of the week you'll shadow a few people, and then next week you'll be on your own."

Ignoring the fact that she already felt like she was on her own, Darcy pasted a smile on her face and issued an enthusiastic, "Great!"

Paul simply said, "yeah" and set her up with her computer and the training information she needed to go over (there would be testing at the end of tomorrow).

Darcy had never been inside an office cubicle before, but it was just as dull, grey, and boring as she'd imagined. Standing up, she peered over the edge of her cubicle walls to take in the rest of the floor. Thankfully it appeared as though they were allowed to decorate their dreary little dens with personal knick-knacks. The amount of cubicles bedecked with Avenger baubles (specifically Ironman figurines) was definitely fanboy overkill. As her eyes roamed the room, they crossed paths with a group of employees standing in one of three break areas staring at her. She smiled at them and shot a quick little wave. Excited to meet some co-workers, Darcy made to go introduce herself, but the group shot her a collective stink-eye and actually turned their backs to her before she could step outside of her cubicle. Bewildered, Darcy slunk down into her seat. She looked down at herself – maybe the armpit toothpaste stain was showing? A swift check showed the evidence of her disaster of a morning was all still hidden by her blazer. She stood up again and took another look around. Apparently blessed by the same beautiful god as Maria Hill, every person she laid eyes on was good looking. Like intimidatingly hot. Even Supervisor Paul was a hot one. Tall and blonde, he looked like he should be walking a runway or something much more glamourous than being a mailroom grunt. Even if he was Head Mailroom Grunt.

Needing the promise of a friendly face, Darcy got out her phone and shot off a quick text to Jane: _Hey Janey! I'm down in the mailroom (floor B5). I know the call to Science is hard to ignore, but at some point today wanna grab lunch with me? I get 60 mins which I can take whenever. Just lemme know when works for you and I'll make it work for me too_ _J_

Aware the text was tinged with a slight air of desperation, Darcy tacked on some levity: _Everyone has decked out their cubicles with Avengers crap. On a completely unrelated note, do you think Thor would let me borrow mew-mew for an undisclosed period of time?_

Resolved not to look at her phone until she heard her text notification, Darcy got to work.

It wasn't until her stomach started rumbling that she looked up from her computer to see it was almost 1 o'clock. Her phone displayed no new messages.

Hoping against hope that Jane was in the mood to answer her phone, Darcy called her friend's cell phone. After three rings, a male voice with a rather dapper British accent came on the line.

"Hello, Ms. Lewis. I am JARVIS, Mr. Stark's AI. You've reached Ms. Foster's mobile phone. Unfortunately, she is otherwise occupied, but has asked that I accept the call on her behalf. Is there anything I can assist you with this afternoon?"

Flummoxed, Darcy took a second to respond, "JARVIS? You mean the bastard who replaced me!"

Silence met her statement.

"Okay, I'm sorry. That was rude. It's not your fault I've been demoted to the mailroom."

"That's quite alright, Ms. Lewis. I take no offense."

"Can you even _take_ offense, Skynet?"

After a deliberately chilling pause, Jarvis asked, "Is there anything I can do for you, Ms. Lewis?"

Realizing she had her answer, Darcy quickly moved along not wanting to get on the wrong side of the AI, "I wanted to ask Jane to lunch with me. That girl needs to eat. Can you wrangle her away from whatever shiny thing Mr. Stark has dangled in front of her?"

"Unfortunately, Ms. Foster is currently conducting a conference call to assist with a rather urgent matter in a lab overseas."

Darcy's interest was piqued, "Ooh, really? What's going on?"

"I'm not at liberty to divulge that information, Ms. Lewis. Would you care to leave a message for Ms. Foster?"

Oh. Right. Darcy was no longer privy to that sort of stuff. That was fine. Darcy was _fine_ with that. I didn't feel like a kick in the teeth.

"Umm…could you get her to call me when she has a chance, please?"

"Certainly, Ms. Lewis."

"Thanks. Uh, hey, Jarvis, do you know where I'm supposed to go to eat in this place?" Too lazy to reference the building map, she figured it couldn't hurt to ask the multi-million dollar Artificial Intelligence where she was supposed to get the foodstuffs.

"There are 5 different cafeterias located in Stark Tower. The closest to you would be on floor B1. I believe the special today is lasagna."

Stomach rumbling at the mere thought of cheesy, tomatoey, noodley goodness, Darcy quickly put her computer to sleep and stood up. "That's the best thing I've heard all day."

"Very good. Will that be all, Ms. Lewis?"

"Yeah, that's it, Jarvis. Thanks for your help. You're a lot less douchey than I pictured."

"I do my best, Ms. Lewis."

Darcy snorted out a laugh as she hung up.

As she made her way down the hallway towards the elevators, she was happy to see a group of co-workers clearly also going to lunch. Glad to finally meet some people, she stepped up behind them only to hesitate when she noticed it was the group from before that gave her the stink-eye. "Umm, excuse me?" They stopped talking and turned to look at her. Determined to make a good impression, Darcy smiled, open and friendly, "Sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to introduce myself and say Hi. So…Hi!" (insert awkward wave here, like an idiot) "I'm Darcy! I just started here this morning."

She was surprised and offended when eyes were rolled and glances were shifted among the 6 people in front her. It was the 5'9" glamazon in front who responded, "Yes, we know who you are."

Bewildered, Darcy asked, "Did I do something to offend you?"

Stepping closer, the woman revealed, "Listen, Lewis, we all know how you got this job and we're not interested in being associated with leeches."

Flabbergasted, Darcy could only stare as they got on the elevator, making it clear she was not welcome to step on. The doors closed in her face. After a moment, the shock gave way to hurt. Darcy considered herself a strong, independent woman, but these last two days were really making her re-evaluate her opinion of herself. Feeling a slight sting behind her eyes, she swore, and made her way into the stairwell adjacent to the elevator. She would not cry at work. She was a goddamn professional. Sitting down on the bottom step, she took deep breaths to push past the hurt. This felt a whole lot like high school and she refused to be bullied again. Marta was clearly an asshole and Darcy would not be made to feel less than. While trying to convince herself she was better than the likes of Marta, it was hard to tune out the thought that it was only her first day in the mailroom and already she managed to make an enemy. If her self-worth hadn't still been reeling from yesterday's events, Darcy would normally be able to bounce back from the likes of Marta. But unfortunately, she was left contemplating just how capable she actually was without Jane's coattails to ride. The stairwell was thankfully empty and the only sound was her breathing which had begun to grow ragged as she fought back tears. Until:

"Christ, what a toad. I'm pretty sure she was spawned in a bog."

Darcy shrieked and managed to flail herself off the bottom step as a voice began speaking to her from the walls. She looked over, heart racing, as the cover to one of the vents in the wall popped open and a leg emerged, quickly followed by the rest of one Clint Barton.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Barton! You scared the hell out of me." Stepping closer she crouched down to look into the black hole. "The heck are you doing crawling around in the walls?"

Ignoring Darcy's very legitimate question, Clint said, "Don't listen to her. Marta thinks she's the shit because she's friends with Maria Hill and is one of the few mailroom associates to have access to levels 75-80."

Registering Clint's words, Darcy blushed in embarrassment and discreetly made sure there were no tears running down her cheeks, "You saw that?"

Brushing dust and an assortment of vent debris off his black t-shirt and purple sweat pants, Clint threw an arm around Darcy, "I'm Hawkeye. I see everything."

Rolling her eyes at that load of bullshit, Darcy poked him in the side until he was forced to remove his arm (Ow! Hey, watch the merchandise!), "How do you even know about Marta and mailroom drama. You're an Avenger, why would you give a shit?"

Clint turned serious has he said, "A few years ago, Hydra infiltrated the mailroom. They managed to do quite a bit of damage from down here. Even though SI has implemented a much more secure vetoing system, I still like to keep an eye out. In the beginning, I suspected Marta would be an issue, but after watching her it soon became clear she's here mainly to try to get into Cap's pants."

"How does working in the mailroom translate to shacking up with Captain America? Not only that, he's Barnes' soulmate – does she plan on hooking up with both of them?" Laughing at the utter delusion, Darcy was officially out of her slump.

"Yeah, I dunno if she's thought that far. Her main ploy is to hopefully bump into him someday and basically he'll be unable to resist her charm. But it's been 5 years and she's not bumped into him once."

Darcy shook her head at some people's idiocy. Everyone knew Captain America and the Winter Soldier were soulmates. Thanks to the files Black Widow released onto the internet, everyone also knew that the two of them had a third soulmate which they had yet to meet. Soulmarks were to be kept covered until you met your soulmate. Unbeknownst to Widow at the time, the files she released contained multiple images of Rogers and Barnes' third soulmark. The media went nuts when it was discovered that they carried identical marks, meaning they would meet their third soulmate simultaneously. The words had been ruthlessly scrutinized and mocked: _"Oh, shit! Sorry! I am so sorry, I didn't see you! Though, really, how the hell I managed to miss you both when you're so goddamn huge, I have no idea."_ The fumbled apology was borderline insulting and ran down their backs in a bubbly cursive which Darcy had always found eerily similar to her own penmanship. Although Darcy knew she was in for a shitty soulmate experience, she shook her head at the thought of matching with Captain America and the Winter Soldier. Hot as they were, that would be way too much drama.

A poke to the forehead prodded her out of her thoughts, "Earth to Lewis!" He'd clearly been saying something which she had missed while deep in thought.

Smacking the offending digit away from her face, Darcy said, "Oh my god, Barton, what?"

"I said, do you want to go get some lunch? There's a great burger joint a few blocks over."

Perking up at the mention of burgers, Darcy was about to say hell yes, when she remembered lasagna, "I would, but Jarvis said the cafeteria was serving lasagna, which I'm a complete sucker for."

"Ooh! You've met Jarvis? Jarvis, why didn't you tell me you met Lewis?"

Darcy looked at Clint as if he was deranged as he seemingly directed his question at the stairwell in general. She was floored when Jarvis' soothing voice came from all around them.

"I don't recall you asking, Mr. Barton."

"Jarvis?! What the hell are you doing in the stairwell?" Like an idiot, Darcy instinctively began looking all around her as if she could actually see Jarvis lurking about.

"I am the building's AI, therefore, I am accessible anywhere throughout the building, Ms. Lewis," Jarvis explained. Darcy was sure she wasn't imagining his smug tone.

"Only a few people are aware that he's everywhere." Clint warned, "Tony doesn't want a bunch of people to know, something about not freaking out the masses."

"But if I'm discreet, I can talk to you whenever I want?" Darcy asked Jarvis excitedly.

"Yes, Ms. Lewis. If you require assistance, please do not hesitate."

Looking at Clint, she couldn't help but say, "Wow! This is one of the coolest things I've seen. And I've seen evil elves, mew-mew, and Thor shirtless."

Jarvis, clearly pleased, said, "Thank you, Ms. Lewis."

Clint just huffed out a laugh at her enthusiasm, not that he couldn't fault her for it. Jarvis was pretty impressive. "Yeah, Jarvis is a good bro, but I'm starving so let's go get burgers. You can have lasagna some other time. I'm not normally free for lunch."

"Fine, lead me to the burgers."

"Great!"

"Wait, what are you doing?" Darcy watched as Clint started to crawl back into the vent. "I'm not worming my way through the air ducts, Barton!"

Petulantly, Clint abandoned the vent, "Fine. God, you people and your doors."

* * *

 **A/N:** Sorry if I dwelled too long on the mailroom crap. I just really wanted to hammer home how boring and monotonous this is compared to the excitement of working with Jane and being up with the Avengers.

Original characters are NOT my cup of tea so Marta isn't going to be featured a lot.

I love Jarvis!

Hopefully you enjoyed that. I'm not super pumped with how it came out, but I'd still love to know what you think. Thank you!


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